Transcription
Hey guys, today I'm gonna cover a very deep topic within Mormon issues. It's the CES letter. Have you heard of it? And have you visited that site?
This letter, which was written by a Mormon who is no longer a Mormon, he basically dove in and started tearing apart Mormonism because he found so many issues, and he went very in-depth with it. I know that the CES letter has taken multiple Mormons out of the church because they've read it and they are just blown away. I've heard from multiple Mormons that the Gospel Topics Essays on lds.org that the church posted, as well as the CES letter's combined, just completely blew them away and forced them to leave the church because the evidence was so great against the Book of Mormon and the history, and there's just so much.
So anyways, let's just jump in. I'm gonna cover some of the highlights of the CES letter, so buckle your seat belts because this one, it covers a lot. If you have questions about it, look it up. You can Google it. You can go to the website. You can type in, I don't know if it's CESletter.com.org, but either one will take you there because I've typed in both.
Number one: Parts of the Book of Mormon contain passages that are word-for-word the same as passages from the 1769 edition of the King James Bible. In this edition of KJV, there are italicized words. These italicized words were added by the authors to make the passages read more poetically in the 17th-century English. They were italicized to let the reader know that they were not part of the actual translation from the source text. Book of Mormon is supposed to be a translation of an ancient text. Why do these words, which were added to the King James Bible in the 17th century, appear in the Book of Mormon? Excellent question.
Huge point. Number two: These 1769 edition of the King James Bible, the edition that Joseph Smith owned, contained errors that were corrected in later editions of the KJV. Why are these 1769 errors repeated in the Book of Mormon?
Number three: Joseph Smith translated the Joseph Smith Translation Bible, the JST Bible, in which he claims to have fixed errors and other translations of the Bible. Why do Book of Mormon passages match the KJV 1769 rather than the Joseph Smith Translation Bible? There seems to be a contradiction here. Again, valid point.
Number four: DNA. Oh, I'm gonna struggle with this word. [Music] Phylogenetic analysis shows conclusively that American Indians are descended from Asians, not Middle Easterners or Jews.
Number five: I cover this in one of my videos and I got torn apart by a lot of people because they hate this subject, but it's a valid point and you have to consider this. Even Mormons who sent me sources trying to refute this topic, within a couple of sentences, I'm like, there's already problems. So, okay, back to it. Horses, cattle, oxen, sheep, swine, goats, elephants, wheels, chariots, wheat, silk, steel, and iron did not exist in pre-Columbian America during Book of Mormon times. Why are these things mentioned in the Book of Mormon as being made available in the Americas between 2200 BC and 421 AD? Very valid point. I have to ask the same question.
Number six: Book of Mormon states that there were two battles that took place at the Hill Cumorah, and in these battles, two million people are said to have died. Yet, no bones, chariots, swords, armor, or any evidence of such grand scale battle has been found. No roads, no ruined buildings, no art, no pottery. Compare this lack of evidence to all the archaeological evidence we have about many ancient people, including tribes living in the Americas at the time when these battles are claimed to have taken place. Latter-day Saint Thomas Stuart Ferguson was BYU's archaeology division, New World Archaeology, archaeological funding founder. And WAF was financed by the church, and WAF and Ferguson were tasked by BYU and the church in the 1950s and 1960s to find archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon. This is what Ferguson wrote after 17 years of trying to dig up evidence for the Book of Mormon: "And I quote, you can't set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt archaeology. I should say, what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book." That is a really good point. I'm familiar with him and I even have further details of him and his funding by the church.
So, number seven: Book of Mormon geography is strikingly similar to the Great Lakes region where Joseph Smith grew up. There are dozens of place names in the Book of Mormon which correspond to real places around upstate New York. These include Alma, Boaz, Lehi, and so on.
Number eight: There is an island off the coast of Madagascar called Nosy Boraha. Its principal settlement was named Moroni. Joseph Smith was a treasure hunter and a huge fan of pirate fiction. A contemporary source reports that the young Smith was a fan of the Captain William Kidd pirate novels. Parts of those stories take place on Nosy Boraha and in Moroni. The name Nosy Boraha appears in the 1830 edition of Book of Mormon, but the spelling was changed in later editions. See, Moriah, just like that island off the coast of Madagascar. So that was very interesting to me when I watched the YouTube video in the interview of the guy who wrote the CES letter. It's, it's really interesting stuff.
So anyway, number nine: A fictional book called *View of the Hebrews* was published in 1825 in Vermont, five years before the first edition of Book of Mormon. It tells a story that parallels the Book of Mormon story in striking similarity, including migrations of Hebrew tribes to America, Jewish origin of Indian language, similar battle settlements, Indian records recorded on gold leaves and buried in a hill, Urim and Thummim, Messiah visits America, quotes entire chapters of Isaiah. Some passages from *View of the Hebrews* and Book of Mormon are word-for-word identical. Reverend Ethan Smith was the author of *View of the Hebrews*. Ethan Smith was a pastor in Poultney, Vermont, when he wrote and published the book. And are you familiar with this? This is very interesting. Oliver Cowdery, also a Poultney, Vermont resident, was a member of Ethan's congregation during this time and before he went to New York to join his cousin and Joseph Smith and to become Joseph Smith's scribe. That's a very huge argument against the Book of Mormon right there.
Number 10: *The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain* is a children's textbook published in 1819. It is written in King James style language and contains many phrases and passages which appear in Book of Mormon. Phrases such as "party of brass and I'm sorry, partly of brass and partly of iron," and "were cunningly contrived with curious works, like unto a clock, as it were a large ball," appear verbatim in both Book of Mormon and a textbook that Smith likely read as a child.
Number 11: *The First Book of Napoleon* was published in 1809. Compare its opening lines to the beginning of Book of Mormon. *The First Book of Napoleon*: "Condemn not the writing an account. The first book of Napoleon upon the face of the earth. It came to pass the land their inheritance, their gold and silver, and the commandments of the Lord, the foolish imaginations of their hearts, small in stature, Jerusalem, because of the perverse wickedness of the people." And of quote. With that, and then moving on to the Book of Mormon: "Condemn not the writing an account. The first book of Nephi upon the face of the earth. It came to pass the land his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and the commandments of the Lord, the foolish imaginations of his heart, large in stature, Jerusalem, because of the weakness of the people." And so on. So that is almost word-for-word. That's, that's a really interesting point to make.
Number 12: The first 1830 edition of Book of Mormon had a Trinitarian theology. This is a big one for me too as a Christian. And if I will believe, I will believe her many passages that establish identity between Father and Son were later changed as part of over 100,000 changes made after the first edition. For example, 1 Nephi 3, page 32: "These last records shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people that the Lamb of God is the eternal Father and the Savior of the world." Was changed to: "These last records shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world." However, there are still some parts of Book of Mormon which establish identity between Father and Son. For example, Ether 3:14-15: "Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me all mankind have life." I wonder if that's a typo instead of "has." And eternally, even they who shall believe on my name, and they shall become my sons and my daughters. So very clear is that I am the Father and the Son. These changes to later editions show an evolving theology of the Godhead away from the traditional Trinitarian view. But by leaving some passages like the one in Ether above, the Book of Mormon now presents a contradictory view on the ontology of the Godhead. And I would include in that, just from my own studying, 2 Nephi 31:21, which also clearly speaks of a Trinitarian God.
Number 13: Peep stone translation. Joseph Smith was not even looking at the gold plates when he translated them. He was looking at a rock in his hat at times. The plates were not even in the same building but were rather hidden in the woods. Why has the church been less than forthcoming about the translation process? That is a huge point.
Number 14: First vision inconsistencies. I have an entire video on this, so I don't even need to read this. You just need to watch that video because I disproved the first vision through the use of Mormon documents and really nothing else. But I'll just read this anyways. There are four different versions of the first vision in the Sacred Grove. Actually, there are more than four. This is Joseph's vision that supposedly occurred in 1820. There's no mention of the first vision anywhere until it appears in Smith's journal in 1832, 12 years after it happened, and a few years after the first edition of the Book of Mormon. The four accounts differ on how old Smith was, why he went out to pray, who appeared to him: a spirit, an angel, two angels, Jesus, many angels, the Father and the Son. They're all over the place.
The next point. Point 15. Almost done, you guys. Book of Abraham. I have an entire video on this, so please go watch that if you want just kind of a thorough background and story on it. Here's another overview. Smith bought a piece of papyrus from a traveling mummy exhibit that claimed it was a document written by Abraham with his own hand. Smith's translation is now the Book of Abraham. Egyptologists later determined that the paper had dated to the 1st century AD, 2,000 years after Abraham lived. That the text was a common funeral item called a breathing permit, issued to a man named Hor, who was mummified in the 1st century. And as Smith's translation was completely unrelated to the papyrus. I definitely recommend going and watching my video for a much better explanation of the Book of Abraham and its history. But yeah, the Book of Abraham presents a Newtonian cosmology which very closely resembles Thomas Dick's 1830 philosophy of a future state, of which Smith owned a copy. Much to the, much I'm going to quote, "Much of the book dealt with the infinity of the universe, made up of innumerable stars spread all over immeasurable distances." Dick speculated that many of these stars were peopled by various orders of intelligence, and these intelligences were progressive beings in various stages of evolution toward perfection. In the Book of Abraham, part of which consists of a treatise on astronomy and cosmology, eternal beings, various orders and stages of development, likewise populate numerous stars. They too are called intelligences. Dyck speculated that the systems of the universe revolved around a common center, the throne of God. And in the Book of Abraham, one star named Kolob was nearest unto the throne of God. Of course, now that we have good telescopes, we know this model of the cosmos is just as false as the geocentric models which preceded it. Which I'm just reading from this source, but very interesting on the Book of Abraham and I think just the correlation between Book of Abraham and Thomas Dick's book, *Philosophy of a Future State*. That is really interesting.
Um, so this could just go on forever. Instead of going into huge detail here, I'm just going to, I'm gonna fly through this. Okay guys, bear with me because it's important. Adultery and polygamy. Joseph Smith had at least 34 wives. 11 of them were married women of other living men, among them being Apostle Orson Hyde, who was sent on his mission to dedicate Israel when Joseph secretly married his wife, Miranda Hyde. Another one of his wives was a pregnant newlywed. Are you familiar with this? Pedophilia. Seven of Smith's wives were teenagers, as young as 14. I would also include that in pedophilia. I think that's absolutely disturbing. And the average age for marriage, even in the 1800s, was in the 20s. It was not in middle school. So, incestuous relations among the women was a mother-daughter set and three sister sets. Several of these women included Joseph's own foster daughters. And read the Book of Leviticus in the Bible. It specifically mentions some other daughter sets and sister sets being absolutely wrong. And Joseph Smith was supposedly a prophet of God who very much owned a Bible. And so that's an interesting point right there.
Doctrine and Covenants 132, that still sets out specific rules about how polygamy can be practiced. And it talks about how, well, anyway, I'll just go here. It gives a man a right to destroy his first wife if she does not consent to further plural marriages. That she must at least be given an opportunity to consent. Smith did not follow the rules set out in Doctrine and Covenants 132, secretly marrying women behind his first wife's back and marrying women who are not virgins. Moreover, plural marriages are rooted in the notion of sealing for both time and eternity. The sealing power was not restored until April 3rd, 1836, when Elijah appeared to Joseph in the Kirtland Temple and conferred the sealing keys upon him. So Joseph's marriage to Fanny Alger in 1833 was illegal under both the laws of the land and under any theory of divine authority. And Fanny Alger was also a, that was a, what do you call it? Oh, I can't even think of the word. Oh, scandal. Look into that story. It's very interesting.
Predatory threats and promises. Smith promised salvation to a girl's entire family if she would marry him. To another teenage girl, he threatened that an angel with a flaming sword would kill him if she did not consent to marriage. That is a very interesting story. Look into it. Smith lied about his sexual activity when publicly questioned about it shortly before his death. He said, "What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery and having seven wives when I can only find one. I am the same man and as innocent as I was 14 years ago, and I can prove them all perjurers." The 1835 edition of D&C bans polygamy, but as Smith was receiving and teaching these revelations, he continued to marry new wives. What I just talked about where he denied having but seven wives and said he just had one, he actually had more than that at the time. And you can find it in *History of the Church*, volume six, right around, it's chapter 19, right around page 408 or so. I know this because it's the exact same section where Smith boasts of having done greater things than Jesus himself, among Paul and other people in the Bible.
So, soliciting perjury in an attempt to abate public rumors of his secret polygamy. Joseph got 31 witnesses to sign an affidavit published in the LDS *October 1st, 1842 Times and Seasons*, stating that Joseph did not practice polygamy. "We know of no other rule or system of marriage than the one published in the book of Doctrine and Covenants." One of the signers of this affidavit was Joseph Smith's plural wife. Joseph and Eliza were married three months earlier on June 29th, 1842. The Apostles and future prophets John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff were very aware of Joseph's polygamy behind the scenes when they signed. Another signer, Bishop Whitney, had personally married his daughter, Sarah Ann Whitney, to Joseph as a plural wife a few months earlier on July 27th, 1842. His wife and Sarah's mother, Elizabeth, also a signer, witnessed the ceremony. So that is just a situation that is jam-packed full of lies. And yeah, soliciting perjury.
Adam-God. I have an entire video on this. Brigham Young taught that Adam was Heavenly Father descended to earth in human flesh. That the Adam-God doctrine was condemned by a later prophet. Watch that video. It's very interesting. And how can you deny the teachings of a prophet who said it was direct revelation from God himself?
Blood Atonement. I have a video on this as well. Go watch it. Brigham Young taught that Jesus' atonement was not sufficient to cover all sins and that some people needed to be killed in order to atone for their sins with their own blood. And I quote, "I know when you hear my brethren telling about cutting people off from the earth, that you consider it is strong doctrine, but it is to save them, not to destroy them." Brigham Young gave himself the right to kill people under the guise of saving them from their sins. Watch my video by going way further into detail in regards to blood atonement quotes much stronger than that one.
And polygamy necessary for salvation. Brigham Young said, "The only men who become Gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy." So polygamy was definitely taught as essential. I talked in another video about the progression of polygamy teachings within the church and how it started at one thing, one point, and ended with a totally different teaching. I'm really interested. I recommend that as well.
No blacks allowed. Joseph Smith gave the priesthood to black men, but Brigham Young prohibited it and denied black people access to the temple. Every prophet from Young until the '70s upheld the racist ban on blacks in the temple. How can true prophets disagree on a matter such as this? The same God who denied the none that come unto Him, black and white, bond and free, male and female, is the same God who denied blacks from saving ordinances of the temple for 130 years. Yet, he changed his mind again in 1978 about black people. These doctrines were later declared false by future prophets and apostles. Yesterday's doctrine is today's false doctrine. Today's prophet is today's heretic. That is a huge point that I have to absolutely agree with. It's disturbing, and the teachings with regards to blacks are terrible. I actually just recorded a video on that, so that will be up on my channel as well. Go check it out.
All right, we're almost at the end, guys. Thanks for sticking with me. Falsifiable claims. Smith claimed that he could translate ancient texts. This is a false claim, as you can see through even just the Book of Abraham and then the Kinderhook plates. This is interesting if you've never heard about it. Joseph Smith gave partial translation of these plates, claiming they were from a descendant of Ham. The plates were later revealed to be a hoax. This and the Book of Abraham mistranslation show that Smith could not translate ancient texts. His claim was both foul and twice falsified. I need to do a video on the Kinderhook plates because that is a very interesting subject. Look it up if you haven't heard about it. Look, look into it. It's a hoax that Joseph's friends played on him to test his validity as a prophet, and he failed their test.
So, those are highlights from the CES letter. I recommend you read it. If you are a Mormon, read this stuff. Get into these topics and decipher for yourself whether or not there's truth to be found within Mormonism. I would think after hearing all of that, and if you can look it up in your own doctrine and websites and scripture and everything else, and you can verify this, I can't understand how anyone could go on believing something that is so obviously and honestly so easily proven false.
I care about you all, and I am praying for my subscribers and my commentators and those of you who do and don't agree with me. I make these videos to expose truth and to expose lies, to promote truth and to expose lies. And I just wanted to say that if you want to talk further, if you are seeking out truth, I share my testimony in another one of my videos. I'm a born-again Christian. I have an absolute hope in my future. I have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and I have so much joy and peace because of that. I would love to talk further. I would love to get some excellent research sources into your hands so that you too may come to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. And if you're coming out of a false belief system, it doesn't mean that there is no truth to be found. I do not want you to end your life in atheism or agnosticism or who knows what else. I want you to end your life knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and embracing truth. This book right here, this is my Bible. In contradiction to the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price and all of the Mormon books, this book right here is very, very verifiable, and it has such precious truth to be found.
So, um, I also have a series of videos coming up that I'm actually doing with my dad. I can't wait for you all to meet him over this channel. He is fantastic, and we're gonna be talking about Christian apologetics. So we're gonna go beyond Mormonism, and we're gonna talk about Christianity and why it is that I believe that. So anyway, thanks for watching. Sorry this got long, but it's good information. You all need to study it up for yourselves and know about it. Thanks again for watching, and I will see you soon.